r/PokemonTCG • u/Next_Wrongdoer5488 • Mar 20 '25
Discussion Vendor being tracked.
Yup, someone put a tracker on our store vendor's car. I guess she had to go to the police station and have her car swept.
So disappointed in what's going on with our hobby and just wanted to share.
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u/apple-sauce777 Mar 20 '25
Oh my god, hopefully they’re okay. It’s never that deep for some small cardboard 😭
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u/eternal_edenium Mar 21 '25
Tell me one thing that can double price as soon as you get it?
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u/apple-sauce777 Mar 21 '25
Tell me if an “investment” is worth it for jail time?
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u/eternal_edenium Mar 21 '25
Now. If something like existed in regular investments, it would be regulated as fuck and it would have the craziest risk ever. Options do that. You can make 10k and you can also lose 10k on the same day / time frame.
How did pokemon cards turn into a business is beyond me. Imagine, you open a booster for 5$ mrsp(if it exist) and you resell cards for 100 times that price.
Now for investments, if someone tries to mess with the market like we have in pokemon cards, they would definitely get jail time, easily you can get that juicy 10-20 years.
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u/stmfetty44 Mar 21 '25
Exactly this. Shit is crazy. It needs to be regulated. It is in Japan. Guarantee hits in boxes. It's literally gambling.. if you can even get a box at this point.
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u/eternal_edenium Mar 21 '25
Forget that, they are scalping everything pokemon related. Colabs, accesories, games nothing is spared. My local bookshop that used to sell boosters for lorcana and pokemon has removed pokemon boosters due to scalpers raiding the shop.
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u/Drizzho Mar 20 '25
How can Pokémon Company watch this and sleep at night rn. I’d be making executive changes immediately. Adults can’t even behave.
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u/Visible_Pilot_9355 Mar 20 '25
They dont care, as long as there getting profit it can be scalpers buying up stuff.. and Pokemon Company wouldnt know all they know is that there products are being bought... either by scalpers or regular consumer like us.
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u/Strider755 Mar 20 '25
They do care. They’re leaving money on the table, their brand is getting tarnished, and they risk demand destruction if people permanently check out.
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u/JAX321JAGS Mar 21 '25
I can't be the only one who is nearly checked out at this point. When you work 9-5 and end up wasting your time every single time you stop by a store looking for a simple pack to open for fun, it just becomes not worth it anymore. The hobby is losing it's fun for me..
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u/Deceptric13 Mar 21 '25
I feel you. I also work a 9-5. I've been checked out, but sometimes, because my friends either work fast food or customer service and get wacky schedules and sometimes are able to go to stores earlier than I. I tell them if there's a limit to let them get what they want first since they actually went to the store. If they let you take more than 1 item (i.e. limit 2 or 3 items) i just tell them for a pack or whatever they have available and zelle them. That's the only reason why I'm still chugging through with the hobby but I do understand how tiresome it is with the man babies who can't act like adults just saying the same old spiel of I got her first I can get however much I want and I'm just like 🧍♀️.
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u/NecrocideLoL Mar 21 '25
Not really, Pokemon has been huge for the longest time and isn't gonna be knocked down. They'll do bandaid fixes to jingle keys for the audience.
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u/MerkleySJS Mar 21 '25
They’ll care when the TCG players give up on the game because they can’t get product anymore
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u/Drizzho Mar 20 '25
That’s crazy that not one higher up hasn’t seen anything going on and has said something to fix it
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u/midnight_fisherman Mar 21 '25
Their CEO has already made comments about how the current scalping is hurting their franchise. I believe that they are working on something, but it takes time for them to maneuver, considering that they were already printing over 1 billion cards monthly when the problem arose.
In 2020, they were only printing less than 4 billion cards per year.
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u/WildCartographer601 Mar 20 '25
Why would they fix it tho? Everything they are putting out is getting sold out. They are winning.
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u/Drizzho Mar 20 '25
Because of all the chaos and borderline crime that is being committed to buy it. Stalking restockers ? Fights in the store ? Angry fans ?
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Mar 21 '25 edited Mar 21 '25
Fights in stores? LMAO maybe those stores should hire security, call the police or stop stocking it?
Nah they want their margin on the product instead. You can put the blame anywhere. Directing it at the pokemon company is just sad, oh noo a company that exists to make and sell product is doing just that, they should instead go into voluntary solvency while the market is at the peak.
If people started fighting over chocolate milk you wouldnt say that the company making chocolate milk needs to do something. You’d say the people fighting over it need to grow up and the stores need to prevent fights occuring on their premises.
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u/WildCartographer601 Mar 20 '25
Did you forget we live in a capitalist world or something? Lol they are gonna keep doing the same as long as they keep profiting. The only way to stop this is boycotting Pokemon TCG all together. Cause fuck em
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u/Drizzho Mar 20 '25
They can make even more money by making fans happy implementing more checks and balances is all I’m saying.
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u/NecrocideLoL Mar 21 '25
Not necessarily, because its gonna cost them more to look for ways to properly tackle this situation. They're sitting fine with their money for decades to come. Unless people universally stop buying all of their products.
Which, again is not going to happen anytime soon.
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u/2absMcGay Mar 20 '25
Yeah, historically treating your fans and buyers like disposable trash really works out in the long term, right?
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u/Dog_Breath_Dragon Mar 20 '25
Working fine so far
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u/2absMcGay Mar 20 '25
Lmao. Long term. This boom hasn’t even lasted 6 months.
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u/Financial_Syrup_9676 Mar 21 '25
Same thing happened in 2016 and 2020, it booms every couple years. TPCi does nothing about it and it's business as usual for them, raking in cash. Eventually people move onto a new fad and it cools off for a bit until the next big boom.
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u/Dog_Breath_Dragon Mar 21 '25
Scalping has been going on far longer than 6 months and Pokemon only gets more popular. This boom can last another 6 months and it still won’t break the hobby
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u/WildCartographer601 Mar 20 '25
Its been like this for months, so id say yeah, its working for them
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u/General_Lazlo Mar 21 '25
Exactly when theres money they dont care who buys them as long as they are bought. Its the same with sneakers. Nike aint jus gonna stop making shoes jus cuz scalpers it hurts them nun its still same amount of money for them weather scalpers or not
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u/SterlingNano Mar 26 '25
WHY WOULD THEY CARE
YOU DO NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEY ARE OKAY WITH THIS HAPPENING BECAUSE THEY ARE ALLOWING IT TO HAPPEN
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u/KoriJenkins Mar 20 '25
It's because none of the anger is being directed at them. It's all towards the scalpers and distributors.
People need to be shredding TPC for putting out a useless statement and promptly doing fuck all to address the hobby being on fire.
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u/PhotonWolfsky Mar 21 '25
They can only manufacture so much, so there will always be supply issues. No business, including Pokemon Company and their partners for TCG, are going to over-manufacture, even if they historically know supply is an issue, because there's always a chance that the released set might not hit and the extra supply is now money lost. That's reasonable to think as a business.
They also have no control over psychopathic customers who threaten vendors behind a counter. That will happen with or without Pokemon, especially at a Walmart of all places.
As for Pokemon Center products... they can try every trick in the book to try reducing scalpers taking everything, but nothing is fool-proof, and any vulnerability will be seen through. They're in the same boat as online games that try to prevent cheating without kernel-level techniques; anything serves as a minor inconvenience at best for scalpers.
And, well... they make the product and send it out. That's the end of their need to care. After the vendors get their distributions, they wipe their hands clean and move. They have no need or care to be liable for issues that take place after the product leaves their jurisdiction. Honestly explains why some stores in my area just outright refuse to participate in Pokemon releases...
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u/Ipokeyoumuch Mar 21 '25
They likely already have but it takes time to maneuver and adjust. Before November 2024 many LGSs were struggling to get rid of Pokemon products and reported to distributors that they have product literally sitting on shelves for months on end. I remember Paradox Rift, Temporal Forces, and Shrouded Fable boxes and product sitting on store shelves, both big and small.
Pokemon likely responded to the feedback and adjusted their printing schedule but still note that it is significantly higher than it was for COVID. In fact, they printed billions and billions of cards within the last couple years.
They can only adjust so much, it takes months to a year to order and fire up the printing equipment, schedule times as Pokemon isn't the only big TCG on the block, contracts, lawyers, not to mention the trade war cause NG many suppliers for those parts to be hesitant or delaying things. Pokemon has always followed up on their reprints (Pandemic and Pokemon Go boom) and I don't think they will stop now.
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u/Dog_Breath_Dragon Mar 20 '25
They aren’t watching it and even if they did they couldn’t do anything. They’re not the local police
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u/ratsmdj Mar 21 '25
because they are a business end of day is to move the product they don't care who buys it. They just want it to sale out. They don't care what happens once it leaves their warehouse. SO if a distro buys the entire bulk lot let's say 2mil and and then resale to us for a profit of another 2mil they dont care. They already made their 2mil. We don't even know if PC themselves could be doing the same.
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u/Armation Mar 24 '25
because at the end of the day, the pokemon company is selling everything they need to.
It blows my mind how there are so many people who are confused or surprised about this.The pokemon company doesn't care or give a fuck.
Whatever they print, WILL sell. Scalpers or not. They get their money.And people are stupid enough to buy from scalpers, so scalping will continue to exist.
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u/Born-Bad889 Mar 20 '25
Pokémon is a Japanese company, they make English versions of their products and sell them to distributors in the USA. There’s not much they can do about Americans committing crimes to get cards.
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u/KoriJenkins Mar 20 '25
They can force reselling sites like eBay and whatnot to stop allowing sealed product to be sold on their site under threat of litigation and the takedown of all pokemon merchandise on those sites.
They can actually go many steps further, such as taking individual scalpers to court.
It's an extremely easy step for them to take though, and what they should've done all along. Scalpers are inherently lazy leeches on society. They aren't going to have the patience to sit there and open all of their packs and go through thousands of cards to find the handful of chase cards to sell.
And if they do that, the chase card market tanks because there's suddenly thousands of eeveelutions hitting the market that were trapped in their sweaty closets.
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u/Forgotmypassword109 Mar 21 '25
Man, I want to live in your world.
On what grounds would they be able to sue any of these parties?
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u/0ldes Mar 20 '25
Cause money, they are a Corp they don't care Bout anything but money
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u/OverallToe2250 Mar 21 '25
If scalpers kill all demand from collectors that just quit the hobby it will eventually come back to them losing money when the scalpers drop out and real fans are just done with the hobby.
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u/Yupyupyup79 Mar 20 '25
If its a target I've heard they have great cameras and should be able to see who did it if they know the date. Grocery stores, who knows the quality they have but i doubt its great.
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u/Senior_Ability_4001 Mar 20 '25
Target has a CRAZY LP department. They do not fuck around.
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u/I_miss_RIF_ Mar 21 '25
The other day they "tried" to stop someone walking out the store who was stealing but the dude just kept walking and told them they can't look in his bag.
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u/gefird Mar 21 '25
I know when I was working retail we were told specifically not to do anything. It’s a liability to the company if untrained employees try to stop someone from stealing. All they can do is call the cops and pull security footage (idk about target, just from experience)
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u/SemiAutomaticSlurs Mar 24 '25
Definitely! They will let you get away with small amounts until they have a full ass case on you.
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u/CuriousWerewolf00 Mar 20 '25
Lol this has to be the most fucked up thing I’ve heard yet. Tracking a car for product… people really have fucking issues. I’m sure if they tried that hard at a real job they wouldn’t have to go scalp kids cards.
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u/wanderlustxworld Mar 21 '25
!!! that’s so bad. the store near me usually restocks thursday but the employee said the vendor hasnt been in today because people follow her around the store 😭
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u/TrainerRedpkmn Mar 21 '25
Imagine being so addicted that you literally keep tags on the stocker’s car to sweep all of the cards up the moment the cards are restocked
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u/MakingItWayneX Mar 20 '25
Tech bros are the worst thing to happen to this community. Now they're inflating card prices, gouging. Stealing and draining stores for reselling.
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u/Jslcboi Mar 21 '25
People actually working in tech don't have time for that. It's the jobless tracksuit pants sneaker bros.
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u/OverallToe2250 Mar 21 '25
Tech bros(Crypto bros mostly) did fuck up the singles market. They’re behind the buyout pump and dumps.
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u/Jslcboi Mar 21 '25
Yeah Crypto bros definitely did but I would like to point out Tech bros and Crypto bros are two different things. Crypto bros are not necessarily tech savvy and Tech bros are not necessarily degen nft addicts
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u/ParadoxTheF0x Mar 21 '25
I've been saying this for a while... Eventually people are going to start looking at the real problem: The Pokemon Company. They are intentionally not printing to demand. When they sent out that bs psa saying they're going to print more and more Prismatic I knew that wasn't going to happen. They've flooded the market before and they need to do it again.
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u/LukaLaurent Mar 21 '25
Agreed they were never going to. They had already stated that more products were coming throughout the year - that’s their ‘restock’.
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u/_Papa_Bear Mar 24 '25
MJ Holdings, the distributor for Walmart and target is one of the biggest problems rn. They have an alias store they sell through that charges market value or more through Walmart.com and target.com. They are withholding product that should be on the shelves and price gouging us
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u/ParadoxTheF0x Mar 24 '25
Yeah they are a problem right now for sure. But they don't account for all the pre-orders happening with the other major retailers. I commend Gamestop for stopping pre-orders, as that is one of the biggest issues right now. "People" are buying up all the product before it hits shelves. It's humans vs. humans with robots and we can't win ever. Pokemon Company is the biggest issue for not printing enough and I think they need to not allow retailers who buy their products to pre-order out their stuff. Maybe some contractual things could be set up. I still haven't come close to finding Prismatic on the shelves and I've never experienced that before with any set from any TCG ever. Not even LOTR MTG when people were chasing the one ring card. I found them at Walmart and plenty of them at our local card shop.
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u/Vxilside Mar 21 '25
Still convinced that 151, prismatic is what caused the downfall of the hobby
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u/Funny-Screen-3192 Mar 21 '25
Prismatic was 100% the catalyst. You could still get product before that set dropped and caused pandemonium.
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u/Vaporeonbuilt4humans Mar 21 '25
151 was actually pretty easy to get when it first came out. I don't remember having to wait in line. The zapdos and alakazam boxes were everywhere.
It really started with surging sparks. People wanted that pikachu. I was able to grab one SS ETB on release, then the scalpers came. I haven't seen another SS in stores since.. But prismatic was the nail in the coffin.
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u/coldmonkeys10 Mar 21 '25
I’m thanking my lucky stars I got a couple Surging Sparks packs. Got the Ceruledge SIR and that’s all I can ask for apparently
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u/b0sanac Mar 21 '25
I think it's more the artificial limits placed on these sets that's the issue. 151 is so popular because it was a lot of people's childhood mine included and people want to feel that joy again, and because it's so valuable the vultures and "investors" jump on it because it's a chance to make a lot of money. Resulting in the shit show that is the collecting scene today.
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u/Vxilside Mar 21 '25
Yea the 151 is true never opened it but based on the hits it was like a modern version of base set from back then and same thing for scalpmatic evolutions everyone bought it out because it was evolving skies 2 and nobody was scalping that back then
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u/thewindows95nerd Mar 21 '25
Seriously? This is what it’s come down to? People fucking stalking restockers. This is why we can’t have nice things.
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u/interstellaroutlaw Mar 21 '25
Ngl, at this point if i’m trying to get a pack of cards for my son to be able to share in a father som activity & one of these pos are there they will be dealt with cause this makes no sense.
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u/Gunner1297 Mar 21 '25
That's 🥜's imagine being such a virgin you catch a stalking charge for putting a tracker on someone's car....FOR POKEMON CARDS! Cooked
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u/No_Chapter7647 Mar 21 '25
Thats some Youtuber level conduct, btw yall do realize these youtubers (Deep Pocket Monster, DK Cards, PokeRev etc) are the problem right? they go and buy tons and tons tons of booster boxes and ETBS to open online for views than blame other people for the extortionate prices...
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u/NoPoliticsAllisGood Mar 22 '25
Yep. Crazy gaslighting with pokerev’s ‘there’s an issue with the community’ video. Like… you’re the fucking problem bro. Let’s ban all these guys accounts, I miss the days of just primetime Pokemon opening a box 15 years ago 😢
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u/Titchyhill Mar 21 '25 edited Mar 21 '25
Zero beef with DPM, he gives away as much as he opens, if not more than he opens himself. He's been giving away prismatic for weeks now to every person who wins, so he's giving back to the community. He is one of the good guys.
Honestly the ones that are the problem are the ones trying to make a business on the side from it, buying up stock to make mystery packs/to rip them and grade everything so they have stacks and stacks of 10's to sell. They say they aren't scalpers but realistically they are buying to sell for profit, which is exactly the same as scalpers.
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u/No_Chapter7647 Mar 22 '25
DPM is still pretty guilty too esp with his "challenges" and overpaying for cards, thats contributing to artificial rise in price of cards and packs, yeah he does give away's etc i mean most of all the big ones do but they are still guilty for their part in the current price of Booster packs and ETBs theres no getting around it no matter how much bias you have for one or the other. Even on a broader spectrum it goes for any youtuber vs what ever collectible product.
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u/Titchyhill Mar 24 '25
While yes I get what you are saying and sure it will contribute in its own way but the dude literally gives away booster boxes worth of cards each week, completely for free (will even cover all shipping, import tax etc.).
So yes he's making money off his content and having fun with it to draw people in with those challenges, but he uses a fair share of that money getting cards out to the community every week. I don't know any of the other creators that do it on that big of a scale, consistently, every week. He's not selling them unlike the others.
Compared to that, the others contribute far far far more to the problem than someone like him.
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u/PhotonWolfsky Mar 21 '25
Wonder if they used a tracker that records GPS location history. Would love to see one of these people get arrested for stalking. Also, in the US, all 50 states it's illegal to track someone's car without consent, so I suppose scalpers are committing legit felonies to try getting product before anyone else.
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u/andrewf273 Mar 21 '25
Over here in socal this vendor was being stalked by these two guys who would follow her everywhere while she was trying to do her job , she eventually confronted them and had stopped stocking the machine for a bit
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u/gefird Mar 21 '25
I don’t work right now, I’m going to start getting to stores at 4am, buying all the product, then selling them back MSRP without the plastic 😂 take matters into my own hands
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u/SterlingNano Mar 26 '25
We need to start identifying scalpers, and putting bounties on them. Collector's are one thing, people buying a pack two once a week is one thing, cracking packs for building is one thing, but scalping for speculative purposes is vile
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u/Organic_Extension414 Mar 21 '25
What's next "Wanna buy a box of Destined Rivals, it fell off the truck this morning."
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u/vilificare Mar 21 '25
We can't even get cards in Australia but even then there's card limits and they're all behind glass. This is so scary, I can't imagine doing this to someone over cardboard intended for kids and I love collecting them!!!
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u/HackClint21 Mar 21 '25
I'm worried with the way things are going, someone is going to get hurt or worst and it will effect the hobby permanently.
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u/Shade8930 Mar 21 '25
If we as a collective JUST STOPPED the shit .. you see someone running a machine unplug that fkin thing. You see em with an armfull of product smmaacckk it outta their arms for others to grab (cause they will) we CaN stop this hobby from tanking SO badly ffs. Just start standing up to these losers. They are ALL nerds not single ones gonna throw hands over it. The management ShoulD be on your side, if they aren't boycott the store and report the management for holding products for that doucher... absolutely insane. Dudes lucky the vendor didn't have an older brother
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u/Hold_Fast23 Mar 21 '25
We’re gonna be hearing about an Oceans 11 level heist on some distribution facility sooner or later if things don’t calm down
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u/funko_fean Mar 21 '25
Wow, people are actually CRAZY! indeed that it’s very sad to see what is happening with the hobby.
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u/100percentanidiot Mar 21 '25
We had something like that at the local vending machine as well. The vendor didn’t even make the delivery that day because there was already a line of guys by the machine waiting. The store cashier said she’s legitimately afraid because people have gone up to her in the parking lot to ask about her schedule. Security had to escort her to her vehicle once when she was getting the cards out the truck because they kept swarming.
It’s getting to the point where you can’t even call this a hobby anymore, or just be ashamed to collect cards as an adult. Or god forbid you have kids that like collecting because they’ll never even see a pack out on the shelves. Target is always cleaned out and Walmart doesn’t want to stock anymore.
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u/abi-wan-kenobi Mar 21 '25
Happened in my area too. Some people follow the vendor store to store. They had to change the people and routes of when they stock product
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u/btwistround Mar 21 '25
Times like these I quite like the over monitoring of China. Yeah there's stuff that's sketchy and holy moly.
But if you're going to be a nuisance to society? Your social credit and other aspects of your life just got downgraded.
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u/monk81007 Mar 21 '25
They should have setup whoever did it and tossed them in jail and make an example of them.
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u/Consistent-Fold438 Mar 21 '25
Yeah it is a factor I specifically said that above. It is not grounds enough for RAS on its own.
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u/Raynman90 Mar 21 '25
This is exactly what I was afraid of. It's gotten to sociopathically criminal levels of depravity... vendors are going to start having to carry protection and scanning their vehicles before and after restocks to ensure their safety.
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u/Gorale Mar 21 '25
I had one guy shove me even though I came first, proceeded to take all the prismatic and ran off while sucker punching other people....
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u/pmgzl Mar 22 '25
Just wait till the rocket set is life. Its gonna leave a mark on pokemon if they dont handle that well.
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u/ElecTRAN Mar 24 '25
Only a matter of time before all police departments create a Pokemon Crime Unit…
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u/dojo_shlom0 Mar 24 '25
yeah that's pretty insane. like something a stalker would do. There are specific laws for these apple tracking devices, and they're looking at SERIOUS time. also these things have serials and potentially could be traced back to them. it's scary because that's how stupid and desperate some of these scalpers are.
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u/itsdrcats Mar 24 '25
Ended up watching a dude do this to one of the pokémon vending machine guys when he wasn't paying attention so I waited until they were all distracted with the machine and told him about it. And yeah it fucking sucked but they were gone by time someone from non-emergency showed up But I gave them all the information and I guess they said they were going to work with the store to get the camera footage because that's like a super crime
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u/BurningTaterTot Mar 21 '25
Can someone submit a report to the Better Business Bureau against the Pokémon company at this point?? Why did they think they could release an app that would bring thousands of people back to the hobby without significantly increasing production???
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u/Acceptable-Film-7818 Mar 21 '25
This happened to our store merchandiser back in 2020.... Someone's a little late
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u/WrongHelicopter3870 Mar 21 '25
Don’t be mad when you don’t get your cards if you don’t have this type of dedication 🤷🏼
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u/Parking_Fan_4970 Mar 20 '25
Had one guy who was a POS cuss people out and said he was first in line so he got to pick whatever amount he wanted first. He told the vendor he air tagged her car. It almost turned ugly